The Highlight Reel of Life

It is really hard to be happy in today’s world when most of us have our noses buried in our phones with Facebook pulled up. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter… take your pick, the end result is the same. We fail to realize that the digital fence that we peer over into our neighbors’ lives is nothing but the highlight reel of their own.

We compare our lives to these positive aspects of another’s life. In so doing, we ruin our own happiness. If I only had what they have, we tell ourselves. Some individuals post the opposite; instead of the highlight reels they only have the negative, but they are less common.

It’s ironic to note that mainstream media focuses on the negative aspects of life when social media is very much the opposite.

These highlight reels make it difficult for us to allow ourselves to be happy. The constant want for things we do not need in order to impress people we do not like. It’s a circular dilemma that is very difficult to break, but realizing it is the initial step. Instead of allowing ourselves to be bogged down with the jealousy that we should only take at face value, realize that they are undoubtedly going through similar struggles as you are.